Page 22 • The HERALD • 1st June 2023 v SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE HERALD v SOLENT SKIP HIRE LTD FOR ALL YOUR COMMERCIAL AND DOMESTIC WASTE MINI ~ MIDI ~ MAXI SKIPS ALSO CUBIC YARD BAGS OWN BAG COLLECTION AVAILABLE 023 8066 0123 01590 619700 • 01962 588288 Email: office@solentskiphire.co.uk Acorn Building Contracts Ltd u Reliable, local builders offering affordable, quality workmanship u Our employees are fully qualified and fully insured u All aspects of building undertaken including extensions, structural alterations, roofing, ground works, kitchens, bathrooms, carpentry and plastering u Drawings arranged u Insurance work undertaken u Local Authority Approved Contractor For free quotations and friendly advice please call Office: 023 8024 3336 Mobile: 07786 656865 Email: acornbuilding@gmail.com or visit our website: www.acorn-builders.co.uk You will not be disappointed A.M.H. Handyman Services Internal & External Painting All aspects of DIY Work • Flat Pack Assembly Power Washing: Driveways, Patios, Paths & Decking Gutter, Fascia Boards & Window Cleaning (Bungalows only) Call or email Andy for a free estimate Tel: 07961 443623 handyandyharding@gmail.com Local and Reliable The Man Who Dreamed of Rocket Mail… But Ended Up in Jail! by Marc Heighway, mheighway@hotmail.com Marc hosts monthly local history talks, visit nfhwa.org/events for details. In December 1934, a young German scientist attempted to re a rocket from Lymington golf course over to the Isle of Wight. He would later be accused by some in England of being a Nazi spy, but then shortly a er he was imprisoned by the Gestapo as they believed he was co-operating with the British. e story of Gerhard Zucker is an incredible one, but it’s entirely true. Born in 1908, Zucker was in his early twenties in Germany, when he started experiments in sending mail by rocket. is might sound implausible, but it wasn’t something that Zucker was alone in trying. As far back as 1810, German author Heinrich von Kleist had suggested using rockets to deliver mail. ere had also been attempts to do so in the early 1900s, with varying levels of success. Between 1931 and 1933, Zucker was travelling around Germany with his rocket design, claiming it would be a game changer in delivering mail. Sadly, for him, his tests and demonstrations were never very successful. Lymington and across the water at Yarmouth. e Portsmouth Evening News reported on the event. “The rocket, which resembled a small torpedo, weighed 18 pounds, and it was estimated it would reach a speed of 1,000 miles an hour. The distance from Lymington to Yarmouth was to have been covered in two seconds. The anxious watchers at Yarmouth saw a great cloud of smoke spread out from Lymington, but no trace of the rocket could be seen.” Further press reports claimed Zucker’s demonstration has been foiled by strong southerly wind. Once red, the rocket, hurtled from the frame, zig-zagged in the air, and then turned sharply in a westward direction and a few seconds later crashed down into Pennington Marshes, a mile away from Lymington golf course (which if you’re wondering, is no longer there today). Now you might think that would be the last you’d hear of Gerhard Zucker, as it appeared that his future probably wasn’t in rocket mail. But his future was set to take a few twists and turns. A bit like his rocket. Sometime a erwards, Zucker was arrested a er leaving gunpowder in a railway station cloakroom, presumably to be used with his mail rocket experiments, and imprisoned for two days. He was later deported back to Germany on a charge of defrauding the Post O ce with fake stamps and being a danger to national security due to how dangerous his rocket experiments were. Rumours also circulated that he had been a Nazi spy gathering information on ports to be used by German U-boats in case of an invasion. Poor Gerhard Zucker’s luck was about to get worse. In 1936 he was arrested by the Gestapo in Germany. Some reports say this was due to a suspicion he had been collaborating with the British and sharing German rocket secrets. Other reports state he was imprisoned in Germany for fraud. Either way, he was released a er sixteen months. He joined the Lu wa e during the Second World War, and a er peace was declared, became a furniture dealer. His love of mail rockets never le him, but neither did his propensity for failure. In 1964 one of his rocket experiments exploded, killing two schoolboys. He was jailed for manslaughter and was released a er just six months. He died in 1985. He even tried to sell his idea to Nazi o cials. But what Zucker didn’t know, was that they were already doing their own secret rocketry experiments in the pre-war period, and far more successfully than he could wish to. With nobody willing to invest in Zucker’s mail delivery rocket, he tried his luck at the APEX International Airmail Exhibition in London. It was here that he met a benefactor prepared to invest £50,000 in his rockets. e two men joined in business to create the British Rocket Syndicate. ey started travelling the UK to demonstrate how Zucker’s rockets could deliver mail from the mainland to islands. Between May and July of 1934, four demonstrations were given around the country. Yet again Gerhard Zucker did not deliver, both guratively and literally. None of the demonstrations worked as he wanted them to, and no local postal service decided to adopt his rocket mail system. Not to be deterred, and ever the plucky trier, in December 1934 Zucker and the British Rocket Syndicate turned up in the New Forest. e idea was to deliver mail from the mainland to the Isle of Wight, with the golf course at Lymington being the chosen launchpad. Zucker planned to re a steel rocket from a frame, landing in the water in front of Fort Victoria in Yarmouth on the northwest coastline of the island, where it would be collected by motorboat. Wednesday 5th December was the date chosen for the demonstration. Six hundred dummy letters were packed into the rocket in front of a crowd of spectators both in Gerhard Zucker, Lymington
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